Rampant nannystatism: "The American people must become healthy again. It's time to bring in the government."

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/09/big-government-small-bellies-what-japan-can-teach-us-about-fighting-fat/261940/

Big Government, Small Bellies: What Japan Can Teach Us About Fighting Fat

The case for naked paternalism in the war against obesity

The well-known statistics on American obesity were anecdotally confirmed for me on a recent layover in Canada, when I was struck once again by how easy it is to tell Canadians from Americans. Those who headed for the "American passport holders" line looked lumpy in all the wrong places. Those who headed for the "Canadian passport holders" line, on the other hand, were of a very different breed. One might hazard to call their appearance "healthy."

You would be wise and correct to point out that my observation suffers from both sample size bias - a passport line is not a statistically significant cross-section of anything - and confirmation bias, since Americans have a well-known reputation for plumpness. But this is a case where casual observation reflects a fundamental truth: Americans are remarkably fat and getting fatter, even though we are obsessed with asking ourselves, why?

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It is time for a rethink of our approach to public health, specifically with regards to obesity. No, it is not possible to use the government to fight fat while adhering to a perfect libertarian ideal; however, it is not possible to do anything while adhering to a perfect libertarian ideal, so let's just start from the notion that we live in a world where outcomes matter along with ideals. I believe that it is possible to change our public health policies in ways that preserve our basic values of personal liberty while significantly improving health outcomes.

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Policies like product labeling, "sin taxes," and health education are no different than things our government has been doing for the last six decades or more. They are violations of "liberty" only in the most technical sense. Unlike the intrusive meddling of the Japanese state, these policies allow the individual the freedom to be fat; but, unlike our current, spectacularly failed policy regime, they allow people much more freedom not to be fat. We do things differently from Japan, and even from Canada. But this doesn't mean that we have to do them worse.

Government paternalism is in some sense a last resort, but it has worked wonders in the realm of public health in the past. Hand-washing regulations, sewage treatment regulations, cleanliness education, and other such paternalistic initiatives brought us out of the cesspool of the Middle Ages into the clean, safe, mostly disease-free paradise in which we now reside. Fat, though not contagious, is no different in terms of its ability to cripple and kill our citizenry, and the epidemic has reached emergency proportions. And not just because the Canadians are laughing at us behind our backs.

The American people must become healthy again. It's time to bring in the government."